Hi Guys, I recently finished the coursework of Synapses, Neurons and Brains (SNB below). Since neuroscience is really not my expertise, I just want to write a “Quick Impression” post to summarize what I learned:
* Idan Segev is an inspiring professor and you can feel his passion of the topic of the brain throughout the class.
* Prof. Segev is fond of the use of computational neuroscience, and thus simulation approach of connectome. Perhaps thus the topics taught in the class, Hudgins-Huxley model, Rall’s cable Model, dendritic computation, the Blue brain projects.
* Compare to Fairhall and Rao’s computational neuroscience, which has a general sense of applying ML approach/thinking in Neuroscience. SNB has a stronger emphasis on discussing motivating neuroscientific experiments such as Hubel and Wiesel when discussing the neurocortex. And the “squid experiment” when developing the HH model. So I found it very educational.
* The course also touches on seemingly more philosophical issues such as “Can you download a mind?”, “Is it possible to read mind?”, “Is there such thing call free will?” Prof. Segev presented his point of view and supporting experiments. I don’t want to spoil it out, check it out if you like.
* Finally, it’s on coursework – ah, it’s all multiple choices and you can try up to 10 times per 8 hours but this is a tough course to pass. The course feature many multi-multiple choices question and doesn’t give you any feedback on your mistakes. And you need to understand the course material quite well to get them right correctly.
* Some students even complained that some of the questions don’t make sense – I think it is going a bit too far. But it’s fair to say that the course wasn’t really well maintained in the last 2 years or so. And you don’t really see any mentors chime in to help students. That could be a downside for all of us learners.
* But I would say I still learn a lot in the process. So I do recommend you to listen through the lecture if you are into neuroscience. May be what you should decide is if you want to finish all the coursework.
That’s what I have. Enjoy!